It looked for a moment as if Henry Cuellar’s career might be over. The eleven-term congressman from Texas’s Rio Grande Valley had long fought to retain his seat in this overwhelmingly Hispanic region of the state, facing closer margins over the years as the Republicans gained traction among Latino voters during the worst of the Biden-era illegal-immigration crisis. The voters in Cuellar’s district had, for the first time in history, given their votes to a Republican — Donald Trump carried the district 53–46, in a straight reversal of Biden’s 2020 margin. Statewide Texas Republicans altered his district’s shape to make it slightly redder. And on top of it all, Cuellar was indicted in 2024 on twelve federal charges of bribery, conspiracy, and money-laundering. Would this be the end of the popular, but increasingly threatened, incumbent?
Not quite yet. After months of public hemming and hawing about the possibility of running for reelection, Cuellar received a full pardon from none other than President Trump himself, who made it clear he hoped that Cuellar would respond by switching parties — as rumors once circulated that he would, back in the aftermath of the 2022 election — and run for reelection as a Republican. Instead, Cuellar announced that, now legally unencumbered, he would seek reelection as a Democrat. (Trump responded in typical fashion: “Such a lack of LOYALTY, something that Texas Voters, and Henry’s daughters, will not like. Oh’ well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy!”)
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